Ditch Cardio - Choose Resistance Training!
Ladies, you need to read this!
For many years, it has been believed that cardio is the way to go if you want to lose weight and that lifting weights will make you look bulky, or manly. This is far from true! Lifting weights will only make you bulky if have the genetics, (which a majority of people do not), if you are in gym almost everyday, and if you are taking performance enhancing drugs.
For women, it is very difficult to achieve the feared "manly" look because women don't produce nearly the amount of testosterone that men do. Resistance training has been proven to be more effective than cardio alone at helping you build the lean, defined body that you want. It should be the main type of exercise you do, and just sprinkle in some cardio if you choose. Resistance training in itself is cardio. When you do a high rep set of squats, believe me, your heart rate will rise!
You no longer need to beat yourself up doing hours of treadmill running or high intensity cardio to burn as many calories as possible, and constantly cutting your calories, because in the long run, for most people, it will not give you the body that you want. If you give resistance training a chance, your body will start to transform the way you want. It will take longer than doing cardio, but it will be easier and more sustainable to maintain in the long run. Trust me, give it some time, and you will never look back. The confidence and empowerment that you will experience is amazing. Imagine how you would feel when you are able to do a heavy barbell squat or an unassisted pull up for the first time!
What's the Scoop with Cardio?
Have you found yourself in the cardio trap? What I mean by this is have you cut your calories, lets say to 1600/day, increased cardio and then eventually you stop seeing results, so you cut your calories down to 1400/day and and increased your cardio even more, and so on. At some point, this becomes completely unsustainable, unhealthy, and just not fun at all.
So why does this happen?
With this approach, you are actually slowing down your metabolism. Your body does not need a lot of muscle to run, or for most types of cardio. Because of this, your body will give you just enough of the muscle needed to perform these types of exercises. When your body doesn't have a sufficient amount of lean muscle mass, it will burn less calories. Cardio sessions do burn a lot of calories, but because it burns so much, and so often, your body sees that you are using a lot of energy, so in response, it starts to burn LESS calories during exercise and throughout the day to save energy. This is why you stop seeing results and need to cut your calories. Also, when you do lose weight, a good portion of it will be muscle, not just fat because cardio doesn't send a signal to your body to hang onto muscle. You will lose weight, but you won't have the shape or the definition that you want.
When it comes to nutrition, eating a low amount of calories will also slow down your metabolism. Your body knows that is not getting adequate calories, so it will start burning less calories to be more efficient and preserve energy. In its attempt to preserve this energy, it will keep body fat on hand to use for energy. This is not what you want!
Cardio does still have some value for heart health and longevity, but you don't need a lot of it. Simply increasing your daily activities like parking farther away in parking lots, doing work around the house, or going for 1 or 2 short walks everyday is plenty. Gone are the days of spending hours at the gym on the treadmill or elliptical machines!
What are the Benefits of Resistance Training?
When you primarily lift weights, your central nervous system will send signals to your body to build muscle. As you increase your weights and get stronger, you will build more muscle. Muscle is a very metabolic tissue, meaning that it is expensive. It costs a lot of calories to be on your body. This means you will burn more calories; not just during exercise, but throughout the day. Even when you are just sitting on the couch watching TV, your body will be burning more calories.
So what does this mean for food?
You can eat more! Muscle needs calories and protein to stay on your body. So if you provide your body the appropriate fuel it needs, you will keep your muscle that you have worked so hard to achieve. Doesn't eating 2500 calories per day sound a lot better than 1200?
How often do you need to train?
For most people, 2-3 days a week is enough to see changes in your body composition. And the nice thing is that when you get to where you want to be, it is easy to maintain. You can train less often and still keep the results you worked for. The benefits from resistance training stick around for a lot longer than the results from cardio.